In response to Michael Price's posting:

His Song Sparrow sounds as if it could be one of the eastern races,
although their ventral stripes are usually pretty dark (rather than "pale
rufous;" that sounds more like something from the Salton Sea!). It's their
very white ground color below that makes them much more brightly marked
than our Pacific coast residents, and they stand out by small size, of
course. Those from eastern BC are a little smaller and a little brighter,
but nowhere near as distinctive as the eastern ones. I've seen one eastern
Song Sparrow in WA, and the Burke Museum has a specimen of the Great Plains
race Melospiza melodia juddi from Seattle; it looks about like M. m.
melodia from the Northeast. I doubt if your sparrow is an odd morphna,
Michael; most parsimonious explanation would be another subspecies.

Fox Sparrows that look like those from the East are very likely Passerella
iliaca zaboria from Alaska and Yukon. I don't know about "grey-headed"
ones in Vancouver; if it looks something like P. i. schistacea in the NGS
guide, perhaps it's from the adjacent Cascades. I've never seen one in
years of looking for them here, so by and large they migrate south rather
than west (like the interior towhees). And I stood at that stone bridge
watching the sparrows for quite a while in November, not realizing it was a
hotbed for vagrants! These birds are just as interesting as eastern
*species* in Vancouver, but I imagine they'll never get much attention, not
being listable (although you've read it here before--the Fox Sparrow may
well be split up).

Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416